30 June 2013

There and Back Again

Regrettably, Utah has recently experienced an unfortunate heat wave.

That, in combination with the fact that Utah sits comfortably at 4,226 feet above sea level means that there is very little atmosphere or clouds to shade us from the suns rays. All you may have already surmised, the natural counter to such heat is an ice cold waterfall. So yesterday my dear friend Robyn and I took the opportunity to hike Adam's Canyon. I've hiked this canyon before, although looking through my blog records, it looks like I failed to write about it last summer. But, if you want to see some of those pictures, they are here.

It was seriously a blast. Hiking this for a second time, knowing the trail meant that I was a lot more comfortable with my ability not to get lost, which made the whole trip a lot smoother. And more than anything it was just incredibly fun! After almost an hour and a half of hot, steep walking it was incredibly refreshing to stand back against the icy spray of the waterfall. It was a really cool feeling with the breezes up there with the 108° gusts coming in from the canyon combining with the icy cold wind from the waterfall. Silly little me seemed to always forget that I wear glasses, and consequently I had to keep taking them on and off when they got wet.

Into the more sincere side of this blog....

This past week I tweeted something along the lines of, "If I am to be honest with myself, I am really falling in love with Utah." And frankly that is very much true right now. From last post talking about a small adventure I had in the city to getting to hike through these absolutely beautiful canyons, Utah and Salt Lake City is an incredible place to live. I know I've talked about it before, and there are certainly downsides to living in Utah. I feel that this is an absurd lack of authenticity in the people. It is not that being overwhelmingly LDS make this a bad population, but the culture of expectations and more importantly appearing to meet all expectations makes this a difficult place to enjoy. Many of my friends express that when they openly express religious doubt or do something just a bit outside social norms, instead of being approached by cautious exploitative freedom, it is frowned upon quite vocally. And for the vast majority of people, there is a healthy measure of exploitative doubt that we as humans experience in order to learn.

Which is a reason I'm glad I grew up on the east coast. I'm so glad that I got the chance to meet other people and learn about their beliefs, ideals and standards and realize that everyone is different and that is absolutely fantastic. I think I should give a special shoutout to my old friends at West Forsyth High School, whose religious beliefs and practices spanned Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, Wicca, Agnosticism, Atheism, Islam and Hinduism. It gave me a very open look at the world from a pretty young age, and for that I am incredibly grateful.

Although despite my reservations, and despite all frustration and doubt, I am really coming to fall in love with the Beehive state and all of its wonder and originality.